The building is not historic, but it played a significant role in twentieth-century Florence, having hosted the famous Excelsior cinema since 1906. With the closure of this cinema in 2004, the ground floor was transformed into a library and houses the Seeber library.

A curiosity, however, concerns the church of “Santa Maria Maggiore”, a stone’s throw from the building, on the opposite side of the road, on which there is a curious marble head that seems to be floating on the facade.

One of the legends concerning this statue claims that it was a woman looking out the window. She had the bad idea of mocking a man condemned to death from her window while he was being escorted to the gallows of the Bargello for heresy. This man looked at her and said something that casted a curse on her. At first nothing happened, but the next day, when she looked out of the window again, she stood still and gradually turned into a stone statue. From that moment on she is there and she looks at people on via dei Cerretani.